A child who wants to learn, will want to learn to read.

A child who wants to learn to read will learn to read.

The current approach to teaching reading is to compel students to learn to read what somebody else wants them to read instead of what they would rather be reading instead.  By definition, if you offer a child something they want to read, they will want to read it.  And conversely, if you offer a child some they want less to read, they will want less to read it.

What practical purpose is served by having students learn to read in unison?  What practical purpose is served by having them all reading the same thing?

Except that they can all take the same tests at the same time every few years.

There are two kinds of people in the world*.  There are those who begin thinking about letting students learn to read by reading "whatever they want to", by thinking of all all the bad things they might read given the opportunity and assuming no oversight.

The other has more faith.

It is simple enough to keep track of what students are reading, in particular if they are reading in an electronic database.  I don't know why people suppose that when we set young readers free, we will stop paying attention to what they read.  Or, that they will inevitably learn "bad" things no matter what we do.

Teaching (young) children is like herding kittens.
... if you can pull it off.

Kittens would learn read if they could, and
they would do it the first chance they got.
They would do it in a heartbeat.


 * "There are two kinds of people in the world:
those who divide the world into two kinds of people,
and those who don't." – Robert Benchley